The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum has a digital library containing thousands of photographs of plants and animals. The digital library is an interactive site that has a kidâs page with videos, animal sounds, and games.
The photo is courtesy of: http://members.multimania.nl/onager/ballista.htmlMangonelThe Mangonel is what many people think of when they think of a catapult. From the Latin word manganon meaning engine of war. The Mangonel was invented by the Romans in 400 BC. The Mangonel consists of a long wood arm with a bucket (early models used a sling) with a rope attached to the end. The arm is then pulled back (from natural 90o angle) then energy was stored in the tension of the rope and the arm. Then the bucket would be loaded.
Are we talking fully automatic or semiautomatic weapons? Not that it matters much, as both kinds were invented around the same time. The first self-powered (i.e. recoil-operated) fully automatic weapon was the Maxim machine gun, invented in 1884 (or '83, depending on the source). The so-called Gatling gun was invented earlier, but it was operated via a crank that you had to continuously turn, so it wouldn't really qualify as fully automatic in the modern sense. Semi-automatic weapons - rifles as well as handguns - were invented around the same time. The first (successful) semiautomatic rifle was the Mannlicher M85, which, not surprisingly, was unveiled in 1885. As for pistols, the first (commercially) successful design was the Borchardt C-93, which was invented in 1893 and became available for sale the following year.